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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 

MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


ISABELLA  THOBURN. 


Isabella  Thoburn 


William  F.  Oldham 


The  women  that  publish  the  tidings  are  a  great  host 


Jennings  &  Pye 
Chicago 


**A\^-VTl/ 


Copyrighted,  1902,  by 

The  Student  Volunteer  Movement  for  Foreign  Missions 

and  Reprinted  by  Permission. 


By  32 

T4<?  0 


b 


A  BROTHER'S  TRIBUTE 

BISHOP  J.   M.  THOBURN 

My  sister  was  an  exceptional  woman,  one  among 
ten  thousand.  Her  strong  character  was  notable  for  its 
simplicity.  Her  splendid  courage  was  in  striking  con- 
trast with  her  quietness  of  spirit.  She  was  conservative 
by  instinct  and  progressive  from  conviction.  She  was 
perfectly  calm  in  times  of  storm  and  always  confident  in 
the  face  of  disaster.  Her  faith  was  like  a  clear  evidence, 
her  hope  like  an  assurance  of  things  not  seen.  Her 
absolute  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  those  who  seemed  to 
be  thrown  in  her  way  was  simply  Christ-like.  Would 
to  God  that  a  thousand  young  women  of  like  spirit 
might  be  raised  up  for  the  splendid  opportunities  which 
are  now  opening  up  before  the  Church! 


M312244 


Isabella  Thoburn 

Christian — Teacher — Missionary 
1840-1901 

Scotch-Irish  Ancestry. — 1.  The  Thoburns  in 
Ireland. — The  Scotch-Irish  are  held  in  high  esteem 
in  America.  So  marked  is  this  esteem  that  the  aver- 
age Protestant  Irish  family,  when  it  begins  to  pros- 
per, makes  minute  search  for  the  dash  of  Scotch 
blood  that  is  supposed  to  greatly  enrich  it  and  se- 
cure the  family  in  popular  esteem.  The  Thoburns 
were  originally  Scotch,  probably  sprung  from 
Scandinavian  ancestors.  In  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury a  portion  of  the  family  moved  to  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Belfast,  Ireland.  Here  early  in  the  last 
century  one  of  the  Thorburns,  whose  name  by  Irish 
attrition  had  come  to  be  Thoburn,  married  Miss 
Crawford,  and  together  they  emigrated  to  the 
United  States, — that  "Beulah  Land"  toward  which 
Irish  eyes  have  looked  longingly  for  a  hundred 
years  and  never  more  eagerly  than  now. 


6  Isabella  Thoburn 

2.  On  reaching  America  in  1825  the  Thoburns 
were  attracted  to  Eastern  Ohio,  where  they  settled 
on  a  farm  near  St.  Clairsville.  Ohio  is  one  of  the 
remarkable  States  of  the  Union,  for  here  the  severer 
culture  of  the  older  East  meets  the  expansive  and 
virile  energy  of  the  younger  West.  From  this 
State  there  has  come  a  larger  proportion  of  the 
commanding  men  and  women  of  the  Republic  than 
its  mere  numbers  would  lead  one  to  expect.  The 
Ohio  man  is  prominent  in  State  and  Church,  and 
the  Ohio  woman  is  in  evidence  everywhere. 

Ohio  Homes  and  Schools. — 1.  The  Thoburn 
Family. — It  was  in  the  stimulating  religious  atmos- 
phere of  this  great  state  that  the  Thoburn  children 
were  born  and  reared.  There  were  ten  of  them, 
for  this  was  one  of  those  healthy,  old-fashioned 
families  that  did  not  tend  to  disappearance  in  a 
generation  or  two.  Five  boys  and  five  girls  made 
the  Thoburn  home  a  bustling,  busy  place.  Isabella 
was  the  ninth  child  and  the  youngest  daughter  but 
one.  She  was  born  March  9,  1840.  All  of  the 
children  have  given  a  good  account  of  themselves 
in  life.  Of  the  sisters,  two  have  been  much  in  the 
eye  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  because  of 
their  wide  public  service  in  the  woman's  missionary 
activities  of  that  denomination.  Mrs.  J.  R.  Mills 
is  now  the  Conference  Secretary  of  the  Woman's 
Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  East  Ohio  Con- 


Isabella  Thoburn  7 

ference,  and  Mrs.  Ellen  Cowen  of  Cincinnati 
is  the  efficient  corresponding  secretary  of  the  Cin- 
cinnati Branch  of  the  same  society,  which  includes 
the  States  of  Ohio,  Kentucky  and  West  Virginia. 
Her  youngest  brother  is  James  Mills  Thoburn,  Mis- 
sionary Bishop  of  India,  a  man  as  well  known  and 
influential  for  good  as  any  man  that  America  ever 
sent  to  Southern  Asia. 

2.  The  parents  of  these  children  were,  it  may 
easily  be  believed,  people  of  sterling  worth  and 
deep  religious  fervor.  The  father  was  a  class- 
leader  in  the  Methodist  Church.  The  mother,  a 
woman  of  extraordinary  force  of  character,  pro- 
foundly affected  her  children's  early  religious  life. 
As  with  Augustine  and  John  Wesley,  so  with  the 
Thoburns ;  when  one  inquires  into  the  life  and  out- 
comes of  the  child,  he  must  take  note  of  the  mother 
who,  more  than  any  other  on  earth,  shapes  infancy 
and  adolescence  into  worthy  manhood. 

3.  Isabella's  Education. — Isabella,  in  common 
with  the  other  children  of  the  family,  received  her 
early  education  in  the  country  public  school.  Here 
she  proved  herself  a  faithful  student,  not  brilliant, 
but  purposeful  and  thorough.  She  never  would 
assent  to  a  proposition,  whether  in  letters  or  num- 
bers, until  she  understood  it.  Mental  thoroughness 
early  characterized  her.  She  might  seem  a  trifle 
slow  in  reaching  a  position,  but  when  she  arrived 


8  Isabella  Thoburn 

she  knew  the  ground  which  she  had  been  over 
thoroughly,  and  was  competent  to  intelligently  di- 
rect the  next  adventurer.  It  was  unusual  at  that 
time  for  young  women  to  go  any  farther  with  their 
education  than  the  public  school,  but  Miss  Tho- 
burn and  her  mother  were  agreed  that  the  largest 
possible  preparation  for  the  work  of  life  is  the  best 
investment  of  money  and  time  that  youth  can  make. 
So  the  public  school  course  was  followed  by  the 
training  afforded  by  the  Wheeling  Female  Semi- 
nary and  that  by  a  year  in  the  Art  School  of  Cin- 
cinnati. It  was  well  that  such  sound  educational 
foundations  were  laid  in  her  girlhood  by  one  who 
was  afterwards  to  open  the  pathway  to  the  higher 
learning  for  the  coming  leaders  of  a  far  away  peo- 
ple. For  Miss  Thoburn  to  have  been  content  with 
less  than  the  best  preparation  which  the  times  and 
her  circumstances  afforded  wotild  have  barred  her 
from  the  wider  usefulness   of  later  years. 

4.  Early  Teaching  Experiences. — Forty  iyears 
ago  the  number  of  educated  women  was  small  every- 
where. It  was  larger  in  Ohio  than  in  most  States, 
but  not  so  large  but  that  one  might  safely  say  of  any 
well  prepared  woman  that  she  would  probably  be- 
come a  teacher.  This  Miss  Thoburn  became  at  the 
early  age  of  eighteen.  But  though  young  in  years, 
she  was  remarkably  mature  in  judgment  and  had 
that  admirable  admixture  of  frank  kindliness  with 


Isabella  Thoburn  9 

native  leadership  which  enables  its  happy  possessor 
to  become  at  once  the  friend  and  guide  of  others. 
She,  who  was  afterwards  to  open  the  way  to  col- 
lege education  for  Christian  young  women  in  India, 
began  her  experience  as  a  humble  country  school 
teacher  in  Ohio.  And,  indeed,  it  is  no  mean  pre- 
paration for  any  place  of  usefulness  in  life  to  meet 
at  life's  threshold  the  severe  test  of  a  "country 
school  marm's"  experiences.  What  tact  and 
shrewdness  and  native  force  that  experience  calls  for 
in  any  successful  issue  of  it,  only  those  know  who 
have  tried  and  either  failed  or  succeeded.  If  we 
were  advising  a  missionary  candidate  with  suitable 
preparation,  who,  for  any  reason,  is  detained  in  the 
home  land  for  a  while,  we  would  recommend  a 
year's  experience  in  a  country  school  room  as  likely 
to  exercise  and  develop  all  those  qualities  most 
needed   in  a   foreign  missionary. 

5.  Further  Teaching  Experience. — From  the 
country  school  she  was  advanced  to  higher  grades 
of  teaching,  serving  in  influential  positions  for  one 
year  in  a  Young  Ladies'  Seminary  in  New  Castle, 
Pa.,  and  later  in  a  similar  school  at  West  Farming- 
ton,  Ohio.  During  these  years  she  was  always  the 
earnest,  helpful  Christian  worker,  who  came  to 
richer,  fuller  development  year  by  year.  She  gave 
much  thought  and  attention  to  the  pupils  under  her 
care.     She  did  not,  however,  refrain  from  the  wider 


io  Isabella  Thoburn 

work  of  the  day.  The  Civil  War  was  making!  great 
demands  upon  the  women,  as  well  as  upon  the  men 
of  the  nation.  In  all  work  looking  to  the  alleviation 
of  suffering  among  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers 
she  showed  the  same  energetic  but  tender  spirit  that 
in  after  years  made  her  so  successful,  and  which 
won  to  her  the  hearts  of  all  whom  she  touched. 
Her  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation  never 
waned.  When  domiciled  in  India  she  followed  all 
the  larger  politics  of  her  adopted  country  with  the 
keen,  sympathetic  interest  of  one  who  recognized 
that  no  lover  of  his  kind  can  be  satisfied  until  all 
organized  society  is  so  purified  as  to  enlarge  the 
chance  for  virtue  in  the  individual;  that  men  are 
"men"  and  not  merely  "souls,"  and  that  the  true 
winner  of  souls  is  that  "wise"  one  who  recognizes 
that,  whatever  power  there  may  be  in  the  individual 
to  live  his  own  life,  there  is  yet  a  solidarity  in  the 
human  family  which  makes  the  ills  of  one  the  bur- 
den of  all. 

The  Call  from  India. — i.  Her  Brother's  Mes- 
sage.— While  Miss  Thoburn  was  pursuingi  her  use- 
ful work  in  America  with  no  particular  thought  in 
her  mind  of  service  in  any  foreign  land,  events 
were  shaping  in  India  which  were  destined  to  en- 
tirely alter  the  course  of  her  life.  It  may  always 
be  assumed  that  the  people,  who  are  most  likely  to 
benefit  the  heathen  when  they  reach  them,  are  those 


Isabella  Thoburn  1 1 

who  are  faithful  to  duty  and  seize  opportunity 
wherever  they  may  be.  The  student  volunteer  who 
is  slipshod  in  the  work  at  hand  and  careless  of  the 
advancement  of  those  around  him  here,  can  scarce- 
ly be  expected  to  do  notable  things  when  he  reaches 
some  other  land.  After  all,  life  anywhere  only  gives 
one  an  opportunity  to  work  out  what  is  within.  In 
the  absence  of  a  devout,  helpful  personality  mere 
change  of  locality  means  little.  The  even  tenor  of 
Miss  Thoburn's  way  in  Ohio  was  broken  by  the  re- 
ceipt of  a  letter  from  her  missionary  brother,  James, 
who  had  been  for  several  years  in  North  India.  He 
was  a  young  widower  and  had  constantly  met  with 
difficult  situations  created  by  the  peculiar  place  as- 
signed to  woman  in  Hindu  society.  With  him  to 
clearly  see  a  difficulty  has  ever  been  preliminary  to 
a  decisive  attempt  to  meet  it.  As  he  found  his 
work  constantly  hindered  with  complications  which 
no  man's  hand  could  unravel,  he  promptly  wrote  his 
sister  Isabella  to  take  steps  to  join  him  as  a  mis- 
sionary in  North  India.  That  fateful  letter  was 
fraught  with  weighty  consequences. 

2.  Woman  in  India. — What  James  M.  Thoburn 
felt  in  his  work  was  the  common  experience  of  all 
missionaries  in  that  land  of  strange  contradictions, 
where  excessive  humaneness  towards  animals  exists 
side  by  side  with  harshest  and  most  unsympathetic 
treatment  of  women.     The  Indian  woman  has  suf- 


12  Isabella  Thoburn 

fered,  beyond  her  sisters  of  any  other  heathen  land, 
the  disabilities  that  later  Hinduism  has  put  upon 
her  sex.  As  early  as  the  fifth  century  before  Christ, 
Manu,  the  famous  lawgiver,  in  his  code  defines  the 
place  of  woman  and  her  relation  to  her  husband  as 
that  of  a  slave  to  her  lord,  a  creature  to  her  master. 
He  is  to  exercise  the  severest  discipline  in  her  treat- 
ment and  in  her  standing  in  this  world,  and  any 
glimmering  hope  that  she  may  have  of  a  life  to 
come  depends  upon  her  servile  obedience  to  lordly 
man.  The  sad  history  of  Indian  womanhood,  as 
seen  by  those  brought  up  in  the  free  air  of  Christly 
teachings,  has  been  pathetically  summed  up  in 
three  brief  sentences,  which,  though,  like  all  apo- 
thegms, not  wholly  true,  still  contain  so  much  truth 
as  to  afford  a  severe  arraignment  of  Brahmanism. 
This  terse  history  is,  "Unwelcomed  at  birth,  un- 
honored  in  life,  unwept  in  death."  No  heavier  bur- 
den lies  upon  life  in  India  than  the  inhuman  and  de- 
basing treatment  of  womanhood  by  the  religious 
prescription  of  the  ruling  faith.  India  can  make 
but  little  advance  in  any  true  progress  or  civiliza- 
tion, except  as  the  wrongs  of  child  marriage,  en- 
forced widowhood,  and  the  social  suspicion  and  dis- 
respect and  religious  discrimination  against  her,  are 
lifted  off  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  Indian  woman. 
No  blacker   cloud   darkens   anv  national   sky   than 


Isabella  Thoburn  i  } 

the  cloud  of  unhonored  womanhood  which  over- 
hangs India. 

Amongi  the  most  futile  of  the  defenses  that  arc 
offered  is  that  the  Indian  woman  desires  the  condi- 
tions under  which  she  lives  and  most  earnestly  re- 
sists any  alteration  of  social  conditions.  This  has 
always  been  the  lame  apology  of  the  wrong-doer. 
The  slaveholder  has  always  held  his  slaves  for  their 
good  and  has  always  pleaded  their  belief  in  his 
statement  of  the  case ;  anything  to  the  contrary  has 
always  been  the  mischievous  work  of  meddlesome 
friends  of  the  slave.  And  so  with  Indian  women, 
there  are  not  a  few  Western  men  who  are  tempted 
to  believe  the  Hindu  putting  of  the  case.  But  what 
if  the  woman,  deprived  for  centuries  of  the  ordinary 
rights  and  privileges  of  a  human  being,  should  be 
sunk  through  the  generations  into  passivity  and 
even  ignorant  welcoming  of  her  servile  place.  Alas, 
for  the  captive  bird  that  never  knew  freedom ! 

But  let  any  faintest  understanding  of  the  true 
state  of  the  case,  any  feeblest  knowledge  of  how 
other  women  live  and  are  trusted  and  honored  reach 
her,  and  at  once  the  woman's  heart  in  India  pines 
for  what  she  immediately  recognizes  as  her  natural 
right.  Listen  to  the  prayer  of  one  of  these  as  re- 
corded by  her  fellow  countrywoman,  the  Pundita 
Ramabai :     "O  Lord,  hear  my  prayer.     For  ages 


14  Isabella  Thoburn 

dark  ignorance  has  brooded  over  our  minds  and 
spirits;  like  a  cloud  of  dust  it  rises  and  wraps  us 
round;  and  we  are  like  prisoners  in  an  old  and 
moldering  house,  choked  and  buried  in  the  dust  of 
custom ;  and  we  have  no  strength  to  get  out.  Bruised 
and  beaten,  we  are  like  the  dry  husks  of  the  sugar- 
cane when  the  sweet  juice  has  been  extracted. 
Criminals  confined  in  jails  are  happier  than  we,  for 
they  know  something  of  the  world.  They  were  not 
born  in  prison ;  but  we  have  not  for  one  day,  no,  not 
even  in  our  dreams,  seen  Thy  world,  and  what  we 
have  not  seen  we  cannot  imagine.  To  us  it  is  noth- 
ing but  a  name;  and  not  having  seen  Thy  world, 
we  cannot  know  Thee,  its  Maker.  We  have  been 
in  this  jail;  we  have  died  here,  and  are  dying.  O 
God  of  mercies,  our  prayer  to  Thee  is  this,  that  the 
curse  may  be  removed  from  the  women  of  India." 

3.  Unmarried  Lady  Missionaries. — And  these 
isolated  women  are  cut  off  from  any  chance  of  male 
ministration.  No  male  missionary  may  preach  the 
gospel  to  any  but  the  lowest  caste  of  women  of  In- 
dia, and  even  these  listen  with  timidity  and  are  ill  at 
ease  in  the  presence  of  a  strange  white  man.  The 
missionaries'  wives  work  among  them;  but  the  af- 
fairs of  the  missionary  households,  the  claims  of 
missionary  children  and  the  necessary  and  legitimate 
sharing  of  the  wives  in  the  plans  and  burdens  of 
their  husbands   prevent  them   from  being  able  to 


Isabella  Thoburn  15 

adequately  meet  the  great  demand  for  a  female 
evangelistic  and  teaching  agency.  If  the  women  of 
India,  the  home  makers  and  mothers  of  Hinduism, 
are  to  be  evangelized  and  taught  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  saved  to  honored  and  worthy  woman- 
hood, this  must  be  done  by  unmarried  women  from 
Christian  lands  preparing  a  band  of  native  women 
workers  to  carry  the  gospel  into  secluded  zenanas  in 
the  cities  and  to  the  mohullas  in  the  villages  of  that 
populous  land.  This  James  Thoburn  saw  and  wrote 
inviting  Isabella  to  join  him.  But  there  was  a  prac- 
tical difficulty  in  the  way. 

4.  Missionary  Boards  and  Women  Workers. — 
When  Miss  Thoburn,  in  response  to  her  brother's  in- 
vitation, sought  to  find  her  way  to  India,  she  learned 
that  there  was  no  existing  organization  of  the 
Church  which  would  authorize  her  going  or  her 
proposed  work.  The  General  Society  had  not 
thought  of  any  but  a  male,  agency.  All  those  who 
had  the  direction  of  the  Society  were  men,  and 
Christendom  has  ever  been  slow  to  recognize  the 
possibilities  of  women  and  the  value  of  their  service 
in  the  extension  oi  the  Redeemer's  Kingdom.  It 
was  true  that  many  young  women  seemed  to  be 
eager  for  missionary  service,  but  this  seemed  only 
to  add  to  the  perplexity  of  the  officials.  Dr.  Dur- 
bin,  one  of  the  strong  men  of  the  Church  and  the 
secretary  of  the  Society,  wails :   "If  I  wanted  fifty 


1 6  Isabella  Thoburn 

young  ladies,  I  could  find  them  in  a  week ;  but  when 
I  want  five  young  men,  I  must  search  for  them  a 
year  or  more."  That  it  might  be  possible  that  God 
was  moving  the  hearts  of  the  young  women,  and 
that  they  might  be  exceedingly  serviceable  in  the 
evangelization  of  the  darkened  peoples  of  the  earth, 
seems  not  to  have  entered  the  male  mind.  And  yet 
Miss  Thoburn  was  so  earnest  and  devoted  a  woman 
and  so  loyal  a  Methodist,  that  when  she  applied  to 
the  Society  to  be  sent  to  India,  they  felt  that  they 
could  not  send  her  and  yet  scarcely  dared  to  refuse 
to  do  so.  There  was  the  alternative  that  she  could 
go  under  the  auspices  of  the  Woman's  Union  Mis- 
sionary Society  of  Xew  York,  which  was  already 
in  successful  operation,  but  Miss  Thoburn  preferred 
to  exhaust  the  possibilities  of  appointment  by  the 
agencies  of  her  own  Church  before  she  would  seek 
any  other  way  of  reaching  what  she  sincerely  and 
strongly  held  to  be  the  work  which  God  called  her 
to  do.  This  hour  of  man's  perplexity  was,  how- 
ever, the  hour  of  God's  opportunity,  and  there  was 
about  to  arise  a  new  agency  which  should  solve  the 
difficulty  and  become  an  added  force  of  marked 
power  for  preaching  the  gospel  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth. 

5.  The  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society 
Organized. — While  Miss  Thoburn  and  the  mission- 
ary secretaries  were  in  this  dilemma,  the  great  Lord 


Isabella  Thoburn  17 

of  the  harvest  field  was  moving  upon  the  hearts  of 
Methodist  women  in  a  city  far  removed  from  Ohio. 
In  Boston,  prolific  mother  of  great  reforms  and 
philanthropic  movements,  there  met  early  in  1869 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  William  Butler,  the  founders  of  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  missions  in  India  and  afterwards  in 
Mexico,  and  Mrs.  Lois  Parker,  the  wife  of  Dr. 
Edwin  W.  Parker  of  India.  All  three  of  these  bore 
the  burden  of  the  depressed  women  of  India  upon 
their  hearts,  and  as  they  described  the  condition  of 
these  women  to  their  Boston  friends,  the  idea  sprang 
up  of  a  female  agency  to  meet  this  special  need.  A 
meeting  was  appointed  to  consider  the  subject  and 
to  take  steps  to  form  a  society.  The  day  came, 
Tuesday,  March  23,  1869,  and  with  it  came  a  pelt- 
ing storm.  Six  women  were  present  beside  the  two 
missionary  ladies.  Nothing  daunted  the  meeting 
was  held.  The  speakers  made  powerful  addresses, 
and  the  six  hearers,  greatly  moved,  proceeded  to 
immediately  organize  the  Woman's  Foreign  Mis- 
sionary Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
With  splendid  zeal  the  society  was  recruited  from 
East  and  West  till  it  soon  numbered  hundreds  of 
members. 

6.  First  Public  Meeting. — At  the  first  public 
meeting  it  was  announced  that  a  missionary  candi- 
date from  Ohio  had  been  referred  by  the  general 
society  to  the  Woman's  Society.     She  was  in  every 


1 8  Isabella  Thoburn 

way  qualified  and  was  eminently  fitted  to  succeed. 
The  Society  was  of  tender  age,  ^and  there  was  but 
little  money  as  yet  in  the  treasury.  What  was  to 
be  done?  A  vote  had  already  been  taken  that  the 
first  missionary  should  be  sent.  Here  was  the  lady 
already  at  their  doors,  ready  to  go!  Mrs.  E.  F. 
Porter  of  Boston  sprang  to  her  feet  and  said: 
"Shall  we  lose  Miss  Thoburn  because  we  have  not 
the  needed  money  in  our  hands  to  send  her?  No, 
rather  let  us  walk  the  streets  of  Boston  in  our  calico 
dresses  and  save  the  expense  of  more  costly  ap- 
parel. I  move,  then,  the  appointment  of  Miss  Tho- 
burn as  our  missionary  to  India."  This  speech  met 
with  ready  response:  "We  will  send  her,"  they  all 
cried.  Amid  scenes  like  these  were  the  beginnings 
of  that  great  Society,  whose  agents  are  now  found 
in  all  heathen  lands  and  in  the  unevangelized  por- 
tions of  Europe  and  Mexico  and  South  America; 
whose  income  is  rapidly  approaching  half  a  million 
dollars  yearly;  which  has  never  known  anything 
but  an  onward  movement  and  has  steadily  gone  for- 
ward from  strength  to  strength;  which,  take  it  all 
in  all,  is  the  most  splendidly  successful  Methodist 
society  in  existence.  A  few  months  later  a  medical 
missionary,  Miss  Clara  Swain,  M.D.,  was  also  ap- 
pointed, and  together  the  two  unmarried  lady  mis- 
sionaries, the  first  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  sailed  for  India  after  several  farewell  meet- 


Isabella  Thoburn  19 

ings.  The  sight  of  two  young  women  leaving  home 
and  kindred  for  the  unknown  dangers  of  a  far 
heathen  land  greatly  impressed  the  imagination  and 
stirred  the  heart  of  the  Church.  The  Woman's 
Foreign  Missionary  Society  has  been  greatly  blessed 
of  God  in  the  quality  of  its  workers.  Bishop  David 
Moore,  after  examining  the  Methodist  Missions  of 
Japan,  China  and  Korea,  writes  in  February,  1902: 

"To  the  Secretaries  of  the  Woman's  Foreign 
Missionary  Society: 

"I  have  now  seen  all  your  work  in  these  three 
Empires  [China,  Korea  and  Japan]  and  am  pre- 
pared to  speak  with  authority.  I  am  proud  of  the 
Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  and  grateful 
for  the  wrork  it  is  doing  and  the  results  it  has  al- 
ready achieved.  You  have  a  remarkable  body  of 
workers.  Were  the  selection  to  be  made  anew,  I 
could  not  recommend  a  woman  to  be  omitted  from 
the  list.  The  reinforcements  seem  to  be  hand- 
picked." 

This  testimony  has  been  paralleled  by  competent 
observers  in  all  other  fields ;  but  it  may  safely  be 
said  that  the  first  missionaries  of  the  Society  have 
never  been  excelled.  By  general  consent  of  her 
fellow  workers  Miss  Thoburn  was  for  many  years 
of  her  later  life  held  to  be  ''first  among  her  equals." 
Beloved  and  trusted  by  all,  she  was  by  common 
consent  and  without  the  matter  ever  being  put  into 


io  Isabella  Thoburn 

words  the  guide  and  adviser  of  the  whole  body  of 
women  at  home  and  abroad  who  work  with  her. 

Early  Years  in  India. — i.  Work  Defined.  On 
their  arrival  in  India  the  two  missionaries  were 
very  kindly  received  by  all,  but  there  might  have 
been  much  difficulty  in  the  place  to  be  assigned 
them  in  the  field  in  their  relation  to  their  fellow 
workers,  were  it  not  for  the  quality  and  clearhead- 
edness of  the  ladies  themselves.  The  initial  victory 
to  be  won  for  all  time  for  women  workers  was  first 
within  the  mission  itself.  What  is  meant  will  be 
more  clearly  seen  by  reading  this  extract  from  the 
pen  of  Bishop  Thoburn,  writing  about  his  early 
experience  with  his  sister:  "I  was  not  quick,  how- 
ever, to  learn  that  the  ladies  sent  out  to  the  work 
were  missionaries,  and  that  their  work  was  quite  as 
important  as  my  own.  A  few  days  after  my  sister 
had  commenced  work,  I  found  myself  pressed  for 
time  and  asked  her  to  copy  a  few  letters  for  me. 
She  did  so  cheerfully,  and  very  soon  I  had  occasion 
to  repeat  the  request.  The  copying  was  again  done 
for  me,  but  this  time  I  was  quietly  reminded  that 
a  copyist  would  be  a  great  assistance  to  her  as  well 
as  to  myself.  The  remark  made  me  think,  and  I 
discovered  that  I  had  been  putting  a  comparatively 
low  estimate  on  all  the  work  which  the  missionaries 
were  not  doing.  Woman's  work  was  at  a  discount, 
and  I  had  to  reconsider  the  situation  and  once  for 


Isabella  Thoburn  21 

all  accept  the  fact  that  a  Christian  woman  sent  out 
into  the  field  was  a  Christian  missionary,  and  that 
her  time  was  as  precious,  her  work  as  important 
and  her  rights  as  sacred  as  those  of  the  more  con- 
ventional missionaries  of  the  other  sex.  The  old- 
time  notion  that  a  woman  in  her  best  estate  is  only 
a  helper  and  should  only  be  recognized  as  an  as- 
sistant is  based  on  a  very  shallow  fallacy.  She  is 
a  helper  in  the  married  relation,  but  in  God's  wide 
vineyard  there  are  many  departments  of  labor  in 
which  she  can  successfully  maintain  the  position  of 
an  independent  worker." 

2.  True  Romance  of  Missions. — The  precon- 
ceived ideas  of  almost  every  missionary  are  likely 
to  receive  a  rude  shock  on  reaching  the  mission 
field.  The  usual  thought  is  that  the  heathen  world 
is  full  of  amiable  people  eager  to  welcome  the  mis- 
sionary and  to  lend  themselves  immediately  to  the 
carrying  out  of  all  the  teaching  with  which  the  mis- 
sionary is  charged.  A  very  brief  experience  easily 
upsets  all  this.  The  "heathen"  are  found  to  be  as 
tenacious  of  their  beliefs  and  modes  of  thought  and 
habits  as  others;  nor  are  they  always  ready  to  ad- 
mit the  value  of  the  strange  missionary's  message, 
nor  to  see  why  they  should  change  their  ways,  de- 
rived from  generations  of  revered  ancestors.  The 
missionary  early  learns  that  the  taking  of  the 
heathen  world  for  Christ  is  not  a  romantic  gospel 


22  Isabella  Thoburn 

promenade,  but  a  very  serious  piece  of  business 
which  taxes  the  utmost  resources  of  the  best  en- 
dowed and  most  fitly  prepared  men  and  women 
through  successive  generations.  Happy  is  that  mis- 
sionary who,  when  the  mere  romance  of  the  foreign 
aspect  of  his  work  is  staled  by  experience,  falters  no 
whit  because  the  higher  and  perennial  romance  of 
helping  sluggish  immortals  and  indurated  civiliza- 
tions by  the  quickening  presence  of  the  life-giving 
God  remains  as  the  calling  for  life's  most  strenuous 
endeavor.  Even  thoughtful  and  well-poised  Miss 
Thoburn,  who  had  been  in  close  correspondence 
with  her  missionary  brother  James,  did  not  find  In- 
dia the  eager  and  waiting  land  that  she  had  pic- 
tured. But  she  soon  adjusted  herself  to  the  facts 
of  the  life  around  her  and  from  the  first  saw  with 
keen,  unerring  insight  that  if  India's  women  were 
to  be  won  and  India's  womanhood  to  be  brought  to 
worthy  place,  it  must  be.  under  the  leadership  of 
Indian  women  and  through  their  devoted  service. 
It  was  clearly  seeing  this  that  made  her  so<  eager  an 
advocate  of  the  best  training  that  could  be  given 
her  Indian  girls,  and  it  was  this  which  made  her 
eager  to  thrust  them,  when  fitted,  into  every  place 
of  responsibility  that  opened.  And,  again,  it  was 
this  readiness  to  afford  them  every  possible  ad- 
vantage and  to  give  them  every  widening  opportuni- 
ties for  service  and  responsible  position,  that  so  en- 


Isabella  Thoburn  23 

cleared  Miss  Thoburn  to  her  scholars  and  fellow 
workers  as  to  make  their  devotion  to  her  some- 
thing extraordinary  and  touching  to  behold. 

3.  Her  First  School. — As  soon  as  she  perceived 
that  the  first  requisite  was  to  train  leaders,  she  de- 
termined to  open  a  school  that  should  develop  into 
a  high  school  for  girls  in  the  city  of  Lucknow.  This 
city  was  the  most  suitable  for  the  purpose,  for  it  was 
the  capital  of  Oudh  and  the  center  of  Methodist 
activities  at  the  time.  It  had  been  besieged  during 
the  Indian  Mutiny  twelve  years  before;  but  already 
swift  moving  events  had  made  the  Mutiny  but  a 
memory,  and  Lucknow  was  fast  forgetting  its  bit- 
terness in  the  changes  and  the  new  ways  being  in- 
troduced by  the  English.  But  whatever  progress 
Lucknow  might  be  making  toward  new  ways  of 
thought  and  life,  the  idea  of  a  high  school  for  native 
girls  was  entirely  too  advanced,  not  only  for  that 
city,  but  for  all  interior  India.  Not  only  was  this 
too  radical  for  Hindus,  but  even  the  English  and 
Americans,  who  spoke  dark  parables  about  "spoil- 
ing the  native  women"  and  educating  them  beyond 
their  sphere,  were  opposed  to  the  scheme. 

Miss  Thoburn,  nothing  daunted,  launched  out, 
hiring  a  small  court  in  the  Aminabad  Bazaar,  and 
the  older  missionaries  tell  to  this  day  with  great 
glee  how  "Yunas  Singh's  boy,  armed  with  a  club, 
kept  watch  over  the  entrance  to  the  school  lest  any 


24  Isabella  Thoburn 

rowdy  might  visit  the  displeasure  of  the  public  upon 
the  seven  timid  girls  who  were  gathered  inside  with 
the  adventurous  lady  teacher  who  had  coaxed  them 
to  come."  The  school  was  soon  moved  into  the 
private  house  of  one  of  the  missionaries  and  rapidly 
grew  into  the  famous  Girls'  Boarding  and  High 
School,  out  of  which  ultimately  came  the  Luck- 
now  Woman's  College. 

Higher  Education  for  Women  in  India. — i. 
While  the  troublesome  questions  of  location  and 
pupils  were  early  solved,  not  so  the  question  of 
what  their  training  should  be.  Indeed,  there  is 
still  an  occasional  controversy  among  the  mission- 
aries and  their  supporters  as  to  whether  missionary 
funds  are  rightly  spent  in  providing  any  but  a  plain 
education  for  the  children  of  Christian  converts. 
The  necessity  for  providing  an  educated  leadership 
seems  even  now,  strangely  enough,  to  meet  with 
question.  It  is  true  that  the  questions  are  growing 
fewer  all  the  time,  but  that  there  should  be  any  at 
all  is  a  matter  for  surprise.  What  Miss  Thoburn' s 
ideas  on  the  subject  were  may  be  learned  from  this 
utterance  made  at  the  Ecumenical  Conference  in 
New  York  in  April,  1900 :  "The  power  of  educated 
womanhood  is  simply  the  power  of  skilled  service. 
We  are  not  in  the  world  to  be  ministered  unto,  but 
to  minister.  The  world  is  full  of  need,  and  every 
opportunity    toi  help   is   a   duty.      Preparation    for 


Isabella  Thoburn  25 

these  duties  is  education,  whatever  form  it  may 
take  or  whatever  service  may  result.  The  trained, 
which  means  the  educated  in  mind  and  hand,  win 
influence  and  power  simply  because  they  know  how. 
Few  missionaries  have  found  the  expected  in  the 
work  awaiting"  them  on  the  field.  We  want  to  tell 
women  and  children  of  Christ,  their  Savior  and 
Deliverer,  and  to  teach  them  to  read  the  story  for 
themselves.  But  instead  of  willing  and  waiting 
pupils,  we  have  found  the  indifferent,  or  even  the 
hostile,  to  win  whom  requires  every  grace  and  art 
we  know.  We  have  found  sickness  and  poverty  to 
relieve,  widows  to  protect,  advice  to  be  given  in 
every  possible  difficulty  or  emergency,  teachers  and 
Bible  women  to  be  trained,  houses  to  be  built,  horses 
and  cattle  to  be  bought,  gardens  to  be  planted  and 
accounts  to  be  kept  and  rendered.  We  have  found 
use  for  every  faculty,  natural  and  acquired,  that 
we  possessed,  and  have  coveted  all  that  we  lacked. 
But  it  is  not  only  our  power  over  those  we  go  to 
save  that  we  must  consider.  When  saved  they 
must  have  power  over  the  communities  in  which 
they  live.  We  do  poor  work  if  we  do  not  inspire 
others  to  go  and  do  likewise.  Intemperance,  di- 
vorce, degrading  amusements,  injurious,  impure  or 
false  literature,  are  all  serious  hindrances  in  the 
mission  field.  Women  must  know  how  to  meet 
them." 


26  Isabella  Thoburn 

2.  Lilavati  Singh's  Plea, — With  Miss  Thoburn  at 
the  New  York  meeting  was  Miss  Lilavati  Singh,  one 
of  her  pupils  who,  with  Phoebe  Rowe  and  a  host 
of  others,  had  been  trained  into  lofty  Christian  wo- 
manhood by  Miss  Thoburn  and  who  loved  her  with 
a  strength  and  devotion  rarely  seen.  It  was  of  Miss 
Singh  that  ex-President  Harrison  said,  that  if 
Qiristian  missions  had  done  nothing  more  than 
make  a  Miss  Singh  out  of  a  Hindu  girl,  they  had 
repaid  all  the  money  put  into  them.  Said  Miss 
Singh,  speaking  also  on  the  higher  education  of  In- 
dian women :  "It  has  been  said  that  because  the 
gospel  is  to  be  preached,  therefore  energy  and 
money  and  time  should  not  be  expended  on  higher 
education.  With  all  that  you  have  done  for  us  in 
the  past,  you  will  never  have  enough  workers  for 
us.  The  only  way  to  get  enough  workers  to  meet 
the  demands  of  the  field  is  to  train  us  to  do  the 
work  that  your  missionaries  have  done.  I  have  been 
told  that  when  the  officers  of  our  Church  have  the 
names  of  candidates  presented  to  them,  one  of  the 
first  questions  they  ask  is,  What  education  has  she 
had?  Now  I  could  not  help  thinking  that  if,  with 
your  heredity  and  environment,  you  require  good 
education  in  your  laborers,  how  can  we  poor  heathen 
do  efficient  work  without  the  same  advantages?  I 
have  been  with  missionaries  for  a  number  of  years, 
and  I  have  seen  them  when  their  hearts  have  been 


LILAVATI   SINGH. 


Isabella  Thoburn  27 

breaking.  It  is  not  the  climate  that  breaks  their 
hearts;  it  is  not  the  difference  of  food  and  the 
strange  surroundings ;  but  what  is  breaking  the 
hearts  of  a  great  many  missionaries  has  been  the 
failure  of  character  in  their  converts.  From  my 
own  experience,  I  want  to  tell  you  that  failure  of 
character  comes  oftentimes  from  ignorance;  be- 
cause we  do  not  know  any  better  we  disappoint 
your  missionaries.  If  you  want  us  to  be  what  you 
are  and  to  be  what  Christ  intends  us  to  be,  give  us 
the  education  that  you  have  had,  and  in  time  and 
with  God's  help  and  grace  we  will  not  disappoint 
you." 

3.  Lai  Bagh,  the  Ruby  Garden. — From  the 
bazaar  to  a  private  room  and  then  to  a  private  rented 
house  marked  the  outer  movement  of  the  girls' 
school,  which  was  meanwhile  growing  in  favor  so 
greatly  that  the  seven  had  become  more  than  a  hun- 
dred. Then  came  one  of  those  marked  days  in  the 
history  of  all  missionary  enterprises  which  bring  in 
new  eras.  Pressed  for  room  and  not  satisfied  with 
the  location  of  her  school,  Miss  Thoburn  heard  of 
the  possibility  of  securing  a  great  house,  built  by 
a  Moslem  in  a  beautiful  tract  of  seven  acres  studded 
with  trees  and  fragrant  with  flowers.  The  estate  was 
called  Lai  Bagh,  the  "Ruby  Garden,"  and  no  loca- 
tion in  the  whole  city  was  so  desirable.  She  secured 
this  property  for  about  $7,000,  and  with  praises  to 


28  Isabella  Thoburn 

God  and  heartfelt  gratitude  the  school  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  new  home.  In  all  beautiful  India  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  lovely  spot.  Amid 
all  her  earnest,  practical  work  how  deep  and  tender 
a  love  of  beauty  held  Miss  Thoburn  may  be  learned 
from  her  own  description  of  her  school  home.  "All 
about  the  compound  are  trees  and  shrubs,  some  of 
which  are  always  blooming.  When  the  hot  winds  of 
April  are  scorching  the. annuals  in  the  flower  beds, 
the  amaltas  trees,  which  the  English  call  the  Indian 
laburnum,  hang  out  their  golden  pendants,  making 
a  glory  about  us  brighter  than  the  morning  sunlight, 
while  deeper  than  the  noon  heats  blaze  the  red 
pomegranate  flowers  all  thro'  May  and  June.  The 
rains  bring  out  the  dainty  tassels  on  the  babool 
trees  and  lower  down  the  oleanders,  which  scarcely 
find  breathing  room  amid  the  odors  of  tuberoses 
and  jessamine.  In  October  and  November  the  pride 
of  India,  a  tall  tree  of  delicate  foliage,  puts  forth 
branches  of  wax-like  white  flowers.  All  through 
the  cold  season  convolvulus,  begonia  and  other 
creepers  are  blooming  everywhere,  clinging  to  the 
portico,  up  old  trees,  over  gate-ways  and  trellis 
work.  A  passion  flower  covers  one  whole  side 
of  the  portico.  February  is  the  month  of  roses, 
though  some  are  blooming  all  the  year  round ;  and 
as  the  days  grow  warmer  and  March  comes  in  the 
whole  garden  overflows  with  color  and  sweetness. 


Isabella  Thoburn  29 

Then  there  is  the  sacred  pepul  tree,  a  banyan  and 
a  palm;  also  seven  wells,  four  of  which  are  stone 
built,  each  of  which  is  a  treasure  house."  This 
beautiful  house  she  called  her  home  for  thirty-one 
years.  Here  she  added  one  department  to  another, 
until  in  course  of  time  it  came  to  be  easily  the 
foremost  Christian  school  for  Indian  women.  At 
the  close  of  the  first  year  it  was  determined  to 
change  the  day  school  into  a  boarding  school. 

4.  Boarding  Schools  in  Mission  Lands. — From 
the  missionary  standpoint  a  boarding  school  is  of 
more  value  than  five  day  schools,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  in  the  former  the  children  are  cut  off 
from  the  demoralization  of  heathenism  and  are 
steadily  played  upon  by  the  forces  that  make  for 
Christian  culture.  No  better  investment  is  made 
by  the  Christian  Church  than  in  the  boarding, 
schools  placed  in  heathen  lands.  In  1887  the  curri- 
culum was  widened  and  the  school  became  the  Girls' 
High  School,  and  a  collegiate  department  was  add- 
ed. Through  all  these  years  the  battle  for  the  higher 
education  of  Indian  women  was  being  pressed 
within  the  missionary  ranks  as  well  as  foundations 
laid  for  it  among  the  young  women.  Nor  was  the 
school  anything  like  the  conventional  girls'  board- 
ing school.  It  was  a  real  home  for  its  inmates  and 
the  center  of  much  sympathetic  Christian  activity, 
which  touched  the  whole  city  around  it  and  stretched 


30  Isabella  Thoburn 

away  to  the  farthest  shores  of  India.  Nor  were  the 
ministrations  of  Lai  Bagh  and  its  unbounded  hos- 
pitality exercised  toward  Methodists  alone.  People 
of  all  the  denominations  and  of  none;  Christians, 
Hindus,  Mohammedans,  the  rich,  the  poor  and 
chiefly  the  troubled  and  the  sorrowful  ever  found 
there  a  ready  welcome,  hearty  cheer  and  always  the 
discriminating  helpful  word,  more  precious  than 
gold.  How  Miss  Thoburn  stood  the  strain  of  her 
multifarious  duties  and  how  she  contrived  to  use 
herself  and  her  household  in  such  varied  and  labor- 
ious ministry  without  any  appearance  of  bustle  and 
haste,  that  revealing  mark  of  smaller  souls,  was  al- 
ways a  mystery  to  her  friends.  She  always  found 
time  for  people  who  needed  her,  and  yet  she  was 
punctual  and  the  soul  of  order.  Thus  she  became 
the  adviser  and  helper  of  many.  The  whole  mission 
sought  her  advice,  and  it  was  an  open  secret  that  her 
Bishop  brother  always  felt  more  comfortable  when 
she  approved  his  constantly  enlarging  plans.  While 
her  school  claimed  her  chief  attention,  she  was 
never  one  of  those  unduly  narrow  ones  who  see 
nothing  but  the  portion  they  are  working  at.  She 
helped  all  through  the  city  to  create  Sunday-schools, 
and  with  her  pupils  both  taught  these  and  visited 
the  Hindu  women  in  the  zenanas.  In  1874  she  lent 
herself  for  awhile  to  Cawnpore,  a  neighboring  city, 
and  opened  a  boarding  school  there. 


PHOEBE  ROWE. 


Isabella  Thoburn  3  1 

5.  IV omen  Evangelists. — Miss  Thoburn  was  al- 
ways intensely  interested  in  the  evangelization  of  the 
women  and  greatly  favored  the  training  of  women 
evangelists  for  service  in  the  villages  and  at  the 
fairs  and  women's  bathing  places.  It  gave  her  great 
satisfaction  when  Phcebe  Rowe,  one  of  her  trusted 
and  deeply  loved  teachers,  turned  aside  from  teach- 
ing to  do  the  work  of  an  itinerating  evangelist 
among  the  lowly,  ignorant  people  of  the  villages. 
It  will  readily  be  seen  that  for  the  teachers  and 
older  pupils  the  wide  round  of  activities  and  the 
practical  interest  in  all  manner  of  Christian  work- 
that  made  Lai  Bagh  a  living  center  could  not  but 
broaden  and  quicken  their  religious  life.  No  won- 
der that  so  many  of  Miss  Thoburn's  girls  are  teach- 
ers and  missionaries  and  devoted  Christian  women ! 
Such  outcomes  are  natural  and  spontaneous  under 
such  leadership. 

6.  Lucknow  Woman's  College. — In  1886  came 
the  critical  day  in  the  life  of  the  school.  One  of  her 
girls,  desiring  to  study  medicine,  wished  first  to  se- 
cure a  college  training.  A  woman's  college  had 
been  opened  in  Calcutta,  secular,  and  it  may  not  be 
unfair  to  say,  at  least  non-Christian,  if  not  agnostic, 
in  its  religious  positions.  It  was  the  only  college  in 
all  India  for  women.  Mrs.  Chuckerbutty,  the  girl's 
mother,  a  Christian  convert,  would  not  hear  of  her 
daughter's  going  to  the  Calcutta  School.     "I  wish 


32  Isabella  Thoburn 

my  daughter  to  finish  her  literary  education,  but  I 
would  rather  she  should  know  nothing  more,  than 
have  her  taught  to  doubt  the  truth  of  Christianity," 
said  this  godly  Indian  mother.  Miss  Thoburn  keen- 
ly felt  the  situation  and  boldly  proposed  to  still  fur- 
ther widen  the  curriculum  and  lift  the  school  to  the 
college  grade.  The  first  contribution  to  the  added 
expense  was  500  rupees  from  the  widow,  Mrs. 
Chuckerbutty ;  and  thus  by  a  steady  evolution,  from ' 
the  little  day  school  in  the  bazaar  in  1870  came  in 
1887  the  Lucknow  Woman's  College,  the  first  of  its 
kind  in  all  Asia. 

The  patient,  earnest  worker  had  won  her  battle 
against  misunderstandings  and  questions  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other  against  the  stolid  apathetic 
indifference  to  woman's  training  that  characterizes 
Indian  society.  Not  the  least  contribution  which 
her  work  has  made  to  the  progress  of  that  great 
people  to  whom  she  gave  thirty-one  years  of  her 
fruitful  life,  is  the  keen  desire  of  the  male  workers 
to  find  educated  wives  and  the  equally  earnest  re- 
solve of  the  native  Indian  pastors  and  leaders  to 
give  their  daughters  the  best  possible  training.  To 
have  borne  conspicuous  part  in  transforming  any 
portion  of  Indian  society,  so  that  those  who  a  gen- 
eration or  two  ago  looked  upon  women  as  little 
above  the  clods  of  the  earth  should  now  begin  to 
covet  college  training  for  them,  is  surely  to  have 


Isabella  Thoburn  23 

secured  very  large  returns  from  a  life's  investment. 
She  found  an  infant  Christian  Church,  gathered 
mainly  from  the  poor  and  unprivileged ;  she  found 
the  women  of  this  Church  illiterate,  burdened,  in- 
capable of  much  progress ;  she  took  the  girls  and 
made  from  them  a  new  type  of  Indian  women  such 
as  were  never  dreamed  of ;  and  when  she  had  demon- 
strated in  the  actual  product  what  Christ  could  do 
for  Indian  womanhood,  her  task  was  done  and  "she 
was  not,  for  God  took  her." 

Home  Furloughs. — i.  While  the  thirty-one 
years  her  home  was  in  Lai  Bagh  and,  present  or 
absent,  she  was  its  directing  head,  she  was  obliged 
twice  to  return  to  America  for  health  and  once  to 
seek  larger  means  for  the  work.  In  1880,  after  ten 
years'  service,  she  returned  home  via  Palestine. 
Her  visit  to  the  Holy  Land  she  greatly  enjoyed,  and 
she  profited  by  it  much  as  a  Christian  and  a  teacher. 
In  1886  her  health  failed,  so  that  on  her  return  to 
America  she  was  obliged  to  remain  no  less  than 
five  years  before  sufficiently  restored  for  service  in 
the  tropics.  Again  she  came  in  1898,  bringing  with 
her  Miss  Lilavati  Singh,  as  fragrant  a  flower  of 
womanhood  as  ever  bloomed  in  that  garden  of  In- 
dian roses,  to  plead  for  $20,000  to  extend  her  College 
and  its  buildings.  The  money  was  gladly  given 
her. 

2.    Deaconess  Work. — During  her  five  years  of 


34  Isabella  Thoburn 

enforced  stay  in  America,  from  1886  on,  she  was 
by  no  means  idle  nor  spent  her  time  in  mere  re- 
cuperation. She  came  to  Chicago  and  there  met 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Meyer,  who  had  already  launched 
their  now  widespread  deaconess  homes  and  train- 
ing1 schools.  Space  fails  to  adequately  describe  this 
Christlike  order  of  woman's  ministry  of  the  Protest- 
ant Church,  which  has  in  it  all  the  devotion  and 
single-heartedness  of  the  Roman  Catholic  sister- 
hoods without  the  renunciation  of  personal  liberty. 
Miss  Thoburn  was  quick  to  see  the  value  of  this 
new  arm  of  power,  the  value  of  trained  women  who 
do  for  love  of  God  and  man  what  cannot  ordinarily 
be  done  for  money.  She  determined  to  introduce 
the  deaconess  movement  into  India;  but  she  was 
never  one  to  ask  others  to  go  where  she  did  not 
herself  lead  the  way.  She  therefore  became  a 
deaconess  herself  and  took  the  regular  nurse  deacon- 
ess training.  She  then  went  to  Cincinnati,  Ohio, 
and  there  proved  invaluable  in  helping  found  the 
"Elizabeth  Gamble  Deaconess  Home  and  Training 
School"  and  a  little  later  the  "Christ's  Hospital,"  un- 
der deaconess  management.  When  she  returned  to 
India,  it  was  as  a  deaconess,  and  this  order  of  ser- 
vice is  being  very  widely  employed  all  through  In- 
dia, where  the  deaconess  ranks  are  being  recruited 
from  the  daughters  of  the  soil  in  increasing  num- 
bers. Wherever  she  might  be,  at  home  or  abroad, 
she  ever  carried  the  seeing  eye,  the  understanding 


Isabella  Thoburn  3$ 

mind,  the  heart  at  leisure  from  itself  and  eager  in 
all  ways  to  minister  to  the  unprivileged. 

Fatal  Sickness  and  Death. — 1.  The  End. — 
On  her  return  to  India  in  1900,  she  resumed  her 
place  at  Lai  Bagh  and  all  the  accustomed  activities 
were  renewed.  But,  alas !  it  was  not  for  long.  The 
sudden  coming  of  that  awful  plague,  Asiatic  cholera, 
the  patient  suffering,  the  unexpected  physical  col- 
lapse, the  triumphant  death,  the  dismay  and  pas- 
sionate grief  of  the  bereaved  circle  and  the  mourn- 
ing of  the  whole  Christian  body  in  North  India  and 
throughout  the  English-speaking  world  form  the 
triumphant  close  of  a  victorious  life. 

2.  Miss  Singh's  Letter. — Details  as  to  these  may 
in  part  be  learned  from  the  following  letter  which  is 
published  in  full,  not  only  to  convey  an  adequate 
idea  of  the  value  of  Miss  Thoburn' s  service  in  In- 
dia, but  indirectly  to  show  the  quality  of  an  Indian 
woman  molded  under  Miss  Thoburn's  hand.  While 
Miss  Singh  and  such  as  she  live  and  teach  others, 
the  great  and  noble  woman  who  founded  what  is 
now  known  as  the  Isabella  Thoburn  Woman's  Col- 
lege cannot  be  said  to  have  ceased  living. 

"Lucknow  Woman's  College, 

"Sept.   12,   1901. 
"My  Dear  Mrs.   Crandon: 

"I  tried  to  write  to  you  last  week  but  could  not. 
It  has  all  been  so  sudden ;  I  cannot  believe  it.  I  get 
up  each  morning  and  go  to  her  room  expecting  to 


36  Isabella  Thoburn 

find  her  there,  thinking  that  the  other  is  a  horrible 
dream;  but  she  is  not  there,  and  if  it  were  not  for 
the  fact  that  I  can  throw  myself  beside  her  bed  and 
ask  her  God,  who  was  so  real  to  her,  to  help  me,  I 
do  not  know  how  I  could  get  through  these  days! 
It  is  a  little  over  twenty-three  years  since  I  came  to 
know  her,  and  I  have  been  with  her  ever  since,  and 
she  has  become  a  mother  to  me,  who*  am  mother- 
less. I  forgot  she  was  an  American  woman  and  I 
a  Hindustani  woman ;  I  was  as  free  with  her  as  if 
she  had  been  my  own  mother. 

"Yesterday  I  went  for  a  few  moments  to  the  ma- 
tron's room  which  used  to  be  her  room  in  1882.  Sud- 
denly I  remembered  the  talks  she  had  with  me  there, 
the  prayers  she  prayed  with  me  as  she  tried  to  lead 
me  to  the  Savior.  I  felt  I  was  on  holy  ground  and 
that  I  must  bow  in  prayer.  In  fact  each  room,  each 
spot  seems  to  be  associated  with  something  sacred ; 
here  she  prayed  with  me,  there  she  said  that  to  me, 
here  I  saw  her  help  such  an  one,  until  my  heart 
cries,  What  shall  we  do  without  her  to  help  and  in- 
spire? I  remember  saying  to>  her,  when  she  decided 
to  give  us  a  college  education :  'Miss  Thoburn,  do 
you  know  people  say  you  are  spoiling  us?'  She 
said,  'Yes,  but  I  want  you  to  prove  to'  them  that 
love,  confidence  and  education  do  not  spoil  people.' 
And,  dear  Mrs.  Crandon,  again  and  again  when  I 
have  been  tempted  to  be  slack  in  duty  or  low  in 
motive,  the  thought,  Miss  Thoburn  trusts  you,  has 


Isabella  Thoburn  37 

kept  me  good  and  true.  What  can  I  say  about  her  ? 
At  present  I  am  writing  in  her  room.  I  have  filled 
her  vases  with  favorite  flowers ;  I  use  her  pen ;  the 
blotting  paper  she  used  lies  under  this  paper ;  I  can 
trace  her  writing  on  it.  Everything  is  here  just  the 
same,  only  our  precious  one  is  gone.  I  am  glad  for 
her  sake,  because  she  worked  hard  and  needed  rest 
which  she  would  not  take  here.  Again  and  again 
I  would  say  to  her :  'Miss  Thoburn,  do  not  rise  at 
4 :30  A.M.,  like  the  rest  of  us ;  you  are  not  so  strong 
as  we  younger  ones.'  But  she  was  the  first  to  get  up 
and  the  last  to  retire.  Sometimes  she  did  look  so 
tired.  Now  she  and  Miss  Rowe  can  rest  together, 
but  what  will  we  do? 

"But  I  must  tell  you  about  that  awful  day.  On 
Thursday,  the  twenty-ninth,  she  went  to  Cawnpore 
to  see  about  the  stone  for  Bishop  Parker's  grave. 
We  do  not  know  whether  she  contracted  the  disease 
there  or  how  she  got  it.  When  she  returned  to  us, 
she  looked  well.  Saturday  morning  she  did  a  little 
gardening,  baked  cookies  for  us  and  when  I  saw 
her  at  breakfast  she  looked  pale  and  tired.  I  fol- 
lowed her  to  her  room  and  insisted  upon  her  lying 
down  and  taking  a  little  rest.  I  went  to  her  room 
again  at  4  P.M.,  and  I  said :  'Miss  Thoburn,  you 
look  so  pale ;  does  your  head  ache  ?'  She  said,  'No,  I 
am  a  little  tired.'  So  I  ordered  the  phaeton  and  in- 
sisted upon  her  going  for  a  drive.  While  waiting  for 
the  carriage  I  said :  'Miss  Thoburn,  I  am  a  lonely 


38  Isabella  Thoburn 

woman,  and  I  hope  the  Lord  will  take  me  home  be- 
fore He  does  you,  for  I  cannot  do  without  you ;  I 
want  you  to  lay  me  to  rest  as  you  did  Miss  Rowe.' 
She  said :  'I  do  not  know  whether  you  will  go  first,  or 
I,  for  "the  Son  of  Man  cometh  at  an  hour  we  know 
not  of";  but  if  I  go,  I  want  you  to  have  Phoebe's 
Bible.'  When  the  carriage  came  she  wanted  me  to 
go  with  her,  but  I  said :  'If  I  go,  I  will  chatter  the 
whole  time,  and  you  will  get  no  rest;  I  want  you 
to  have  a  restful  time.'  I  sent  her  off,  and  an  hour 
later  I  saw  her  arranging  flowers  in  the  dining  room. 
It  was  Mr.  West's  birthday,  and  all  the  missionaries 
were  invited  for  dinner.  At  dinner  I  noticed  that  she 
only  ate  her  soup,  and  I  said,  'Miss  Thoburn,  you 
are  sick.'  She  declared  emphatically  she  was  only 
tired.  At  10  P.M.  I  bade  her  good  night,  and  that 
was  all  till  3  A.M.,  Sunday,  when  the  night  watch- 
man came  and  called  me  and  said  she  had  sent  for 
me.  I  went  down  and  sent  the  carriage  for  the  doc- 
tor and  in  the  meantime  applied  the  usual  remedies. 
She  said,  The  doctor  will  think  you  very  foolish 
for  troubling  him  for  only  an  attack  of  indigestion.' 
I  said,  T  would  feel  more  comfortable  were  he 
around.'  He  came  and  looked  grave  and  sent  for 
the  best  doctors  in  the  town.  They  were  with  her 
constantly.  Till  noon  we  had  every  hope,  and  I  be- 
lieve she  herself  expected  to  get  well,  and  therefore 
gave  no  message.  After  12  o'clock  she  was  too 
weak  to  speak.     When  the  cramps  were  very  bad 


Isabella  Thoburn  39 

she  said,  'Let  me  hold  your  hand  for  I  do  not  wish 
to  groan.'  That  is  the  way  our  precious  one  had 
lived ;  no  complaint  about  the  hardest  thing !  When 
the  pain  was  very  bad,  she  said  to  me,  'Sing.'  I 
said,  'What  ?'  She  said,  'Come  Thou  fount  of  every 
blessing.'  I  got  some  one  in  the  room  to  sing  that 
and  others  of  her  favorite  hymns.  In  her  pain  and 
agony  she  kept  speaking  in  Hindustani.  It  nearly 
broke  my  heart  to  hear  her.  She  had  lived  for  us, 
and  she  was  dying  for  us ;  she  was  so  one  of  us 
that  in  her  last  moments  she  forgot  her  own  tongue 
and  spoke  in  ours.  There  is  no  one  like  her, — our 
dear,  devoted  friend.  She  lingered  on  till  8  P.M., 
then  left  us.  But  for  Christ's  words,  T  will  not  leave 
you  comfortless, — orphans,  the  margin  says, — I 
will  come  to  you,'  I  do  not  know  how  we  could  bear 
this  sorrow.  But  now  the  cry  of  my  heart  is,  'Make 
me  a  little  like  her,  that  people  when  they  see  me  may 
say,  'The  spirit  of  Miss  Thoburn  cloth  rest  upon 
her.'  In  her  Sunday-school  book  I  found  her  pledge 
in  connection  with  the  Twentieth  Century  Move- 
ment, by  which  she  had  promised  to  bring  ten  new 
souls  to  Christ.  I  had  taken  the  same  pledge,  but 
now  I  must  work  hard  for  hers  and  for  my  own ; 
and  as  my  beloved  is  so  near  Jesus  she  can  ask  Him 
to  help  my  weak  efforts. 

"I  cannot  tell  you  about  the  funeral,  for  I  remem- 
ber nothing.  I  will  get  some  one  else  to  write  about 
it  by  and  by.     Miss  Nichols  has  not  been  very  well 


40  Isabella  Thoburn 

this  year  and  Miss  Thoburn  was  troubled  about  her. 
Again  and  again  she  said,  T  thought  she  was  the 
one  for  my  place,  but  perhaps  God  has  other  plans.' 
But  the  strange  part  of  it  is  that  Miss  Nichols  is 
getting  well  in  a  miraculous  way,  and  the  doctors 
say  she  can  stay  in  India.  I  wonder  if  it  is  because 
Miss  Thoburn  has  seen  Jesus  face  to  face  and  asked 
Him  for  this  that  she  wanted  so  much.  But  I 
must  stop  for  it  is  time  to  send  this  to  the  postoffice. 
I  had  intended  to  write  for  the  Branch  meeting,  as 
also  for  the  General  Executive,  but  now  I  cannot. 
Give  them  all  my  best  love,  and  if  you  think  it  best, 
read  them  part  of  this  letter.  Tell  them  to  be  very 
good  to  us  for  we  are  orphans  and,  dear  Mrs.  Cran- 
don,  do  try  to  send  some  one  to*  take  the  teaching 
oft"  Miss  Nichols'  hands,  for  we  must  keep  her  well, 
and  she  cannot  teach  and  superintend  both.  The 
plan  is  to  have  Mrs.  Parker  live  with  us  for  a  sort 
of  adviser,  but  we  will  need  another  missionary  to 
teach  in  the  College.  Pray  for  us,  love  us  even  more 
than  you  have  done,  for  wre  seem  so  alone  in  the 
world  without  our  friend. 

"Yours  affectionately, 

"Lilavati  Singh/' 
3.  God's  Acre. — Miss  Thoburn's  body  lies  in  the 
Lucknow  cemetery,  beside  the  grave  of  Dr.  Badley, 
the  founder  of  the  Reid  Christian  College.  The 
bodies  of  these  two  great  missionaries  there  await 
side  by  side  the  Resurrection  morning. 


iv 


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